


your name in ink is my compass home

by sometimeswebreakbeforeweshine (orphan_account)



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Immortality, M/M, blue hydrangeas are cute af, cute af, this as a brain child, vintage au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:28:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4115518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sometimeswebreakbeforeweshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blue hydrangeas that look like his eyes and a past and life so rich that Luke could drown in the beauty of the man he hadloved and yes, he was taken from him, and fuck if he wouldn't kiss him when he got him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your name in ink is my compass home

**Author's Note:**

> yooooooo hey my lovelies. hope you like this!!!

In 1926, Luke Hemmings met a beautiful boy. Ashton Brigham was perfect. Luke was so in love with him, in love with his dimples and smiles and gorgeous hair and something about being around the older boy was _home_. Home was the soft scent of coffee that lingered on Ashton’s breath and was often sighed into Luke’s mouth, home was Ashton’s arms settled tightly around Luke’s waist and home was quiet spaces when nothing was spoken but everything was said. Home was giggly kisses and locked hands that connected their souls. Home was laughter and kisses and memories and home was everything Ashton was to Luke, and Luke was to Ashton.

 

Ashton was light and hope and Luke gone for Ashton when he first laid eyes on him. Luke had lived an ordinary life, within the confines of what was expected. The electric blue eyed boy was just an accountant and Ashton was just a flower peddler who worked outside the bank. They were just two boys who met outside a bank and Ashton was just a boy who made flowers grow inside of Luke. Ashton was just a boy with hopeful green eyes and sweet pink lips. Ashton was just a boy who handed Luke a set of blue hydrangeas and said it was just like Luke’s eyes.

 

Luke and Ashton were two boys who would kiss for hours and fell in love like summer rain, warm and inviting and new. Ashton kissed like he belonged with Luke, with hands trailing down Luke’s waist and Luke’s lips bitten until the blue eyed boy would _whine_ against the other’s lips. Ashton was hazel eyes and yellow sunsets that melted into purple midnights were enigma stars. Ashton was in love with Luke, in love with beautiful piercing cerulean eyes and delicate touches and broken mugs dropped on cheap hardwood floors. Ashton was in love with Luke, and it was the easiest part of him.

 

Ashton Brigham and Luke Hemmings fell in love like limbs of trees that grew too close, roots tangling until you couldn’t tell where either of them started or ended. Luke was a piece of Ashton tucked in Ashton’s heart, and Ashton is the hope that keeps Luke breathing. Ashton was the joy that rushed in Luke’s veins and Luke grew old with Ashton.

 

Luke grew old with Ashton, moved into a crooked house on a lopsided hill then had a view of nothing but more hills and sunset’s that washed over the two boy’s eyes every night.

 

They faced the sun, and every night, Ashton would make coffee, what Luke called Ashton’s _famous,_ coffee, and they sat on a swing that Luke built for their 20th anniversary.

 

Ashton aged beautifully, hazel hair dulling to dusky gray, wrinkles dusting his picturesque face, salt and pepper pockets clinging to underneath his eyes. Ashton aged with grace, and to Ashton, Luke aged with all the poise of a ballet dancer. Luke’s hair grayed and his eyes color never faded but their accuracy did and with glasses hung over both of their faces and wrinkles adorning smitten faces, they watched the sunset.

 

Ashton has been sick for a long time. Cancer, they had said. It was inevitable, and while it filled Luke with panic, Ashton insisted that he had led a beautiful life with the love of his life and he hadn’t needed to be here any longer.

 

“I’ll need you,” Luke had said on the day of diagnosis.

 

“You’ll always have me,” he had whispered in that raspy clarion voice Luke could follow home.

 

And he wants to say something to that, but he couldn’t. Then, he kissed him. He kissed him and it was scary because he didn’t know who would hit them for two sixty year old men kissing in a hospital room, but Luke didn’t care.

 

“I love you, Ashton Hemmings,” he breathed on the other boy’s lips, eyes only unopened because his heart‘s love drenching his eyes and he is drunk on Ashton’s love and how he’d gotten to love Ashton for 50 years, and if anyone deserves paradise, it’s the angel boy in his arms.

 

And Ashton is laid across the swing with his head in Luke’s lap, the doctor's say it’s his last day. Luke is looking at his love, watching Ashton’s eyes smile, the crinkles by his eyes wrinkling in joy. He’s always been _alive._ Luke knows it’s a dumb thought, because - _duh_. But Ashton was alive in a different sense. He was bright and brilliant and Luke loved him because there was fore in his hazel eyes.

 

And a world without that didn’t seem worth it.

 

 _Can I please live forever?_ he asked God while looking into his lover's eyes. Because Luke had a story to tell, and that story was named Ashton. He meant that he would live forever and ever if it meant Ashton.

 

As long as Ashton.

 

And Ashton, Ashton who grew old with Luke, Ashton who carried Luke over the threshold when they moved in, Ashton who Luke would marry if he could, Ashton who Luke loved, smiled at him.

 

And then the light from behind his eyes was gone.

 

Luke is crying, and it was broken and lost and he wanted to die. And it hurt. Ashton is facing him and Luke is crying gross large sobs that stop his breath and his broken heart isn’t even _broken. I_ t’s not shattered. It’s gone. Ashton had slipped away from the living world and had stole every bit of Luke’s heart just along with it. His fingers clutch Ashtons short and Ashton is not there. A body. But no Ashton.

 

Luke is going to be sick. There’s a sick terrifying pain creeping up on Luke’s gut and it _hurts._ It hurts and Luke is holding Ashton like if he let go his heart would burst.

 

There isn’t words for this. There isn’t words and there aren’t tears for the love of your life dying in your arms. Luke wanted to beg, beg for more time, beg for just a minute longer, just so he could kiss Ashton again, just so he could do everything again. It was over. It was over, and Luke was over. It was finished.

 

Ashton had been Luke’s forever, Luke’s light and Luke’s hope. Ashton was smiles and kisses and Ashton was gone. Ashton was gone to a world that he couldn’t be. Tears.

 

They’re coming now and they’re not stopping and Luke is drowning and he needs Ashton and it feels like fire licking at his throat and he’s begging, pleading for another chance to see Ashton again and it’s wrong and broken and fuckfuck _fuck_ he needs him.

 

And he’s clutching Ashton’s body and he’s crying and it _hurts so fucking much._ Ashton is gone and there's nothing left for Luke grasp at. Ashton Is dead, the highest, most permanent

 

And then, Luke realizes.

Ashton is still there, and Luke’s young.

 

He’s 17 fucking years old again.

 

His body is young and he’s age backed down and his clothes are loose and wrong and on his wrist, is the scripted words **అష్టన్** etched on his wrist and it’s not something he can see or understand. Just below it, in blue ink that was just below, that said, _Blue’s Record Shop 1911 Sydney_

 

And then he does. He doesn’t understand what’s going on but he knows that Ashton is the answer. Ashton is always the answer. Ashton is the reason for the fucking _address_ on his arms, and if Ashton isn’t in the body below him anymore, maybe he’s in Blue’s Record Shop.

 

He is 17 again, which makes no sense, but Ashton does. Luke could understand Ashton if he was speaking in a different language. If his name was etched on his worst.

 

And he is.

 

A tattoo, a new body. A life that he knew that Ashton would want him to have, And maybe, maybe the itch in his system..

 

Immortality. Ashton.

 

It’s a messed up thought and he’s scared and confused and things were always going to be broken with Ashton dead. He’s 17, and young, and if Luke is 17, Ashton’s gotta be out there, not in the body in him. Luke is teary and and scared, but he knows that he needs to run, he doesn’t know why, but he does. So he runs upstairs, leaving Ashton delicately on the swing and picking up a suitcase, panic in his veins and pain in his heart as he ran down. Ashton is a memory that hangs in the air, that tells Luke to go to Blue’s Record Shop. He’s in Perth, and Sydney is far. But Luke needs to go, because he can sense Ashton there.

 

Ashton is also a sixty year old man on a porch, swinging as though he might open his eyes anytime.

 

~

Miles away, Ashton Irwin was born to a two loving parents, and Luke was set to find the love of his life all over again.

 

~

 

Luke was _tired._ He was _miserable._ And most of all, he was broken. There is something unfathomably awful about spending the _18 years_ searching for a boy that you weren’t even sure was here. It was hard without Ashton at his side, hard when every breath he took was ragged for 18 years. It burned, burned to live without the other boy’s touch. It broke pieces of Luke. But is that fair to say? Because can you really break what’s already shattered?

 

Luke juggled jobs, because what more can a boy who doesn’t age do. He’s frozen in time, he’s realized. Frozen to the day he met Ashton. This whole thing seemed to radiate Ashton, like the reason he's here is Ashton. He lived down the street from the record shop, with an old lady who couldn't tell time and space much anyway. She just didn't want to be sent to nursing homes. Luke could take care of her losing mind and live in her house in return. He’s done that for 18 years, which is a sad loveless life, but Luke loved the old lady like a mother. And he changed with time, developing loves for bands, even getting a lip ring.

 

Luke was tired. His heart hung low, and he's praying for a miracle, because it's eighteen years without hazel eyes and loving touches,eighteen years without the love of his life. Eighteen years without giggles and warmth, warmth that the memory of keeps Luke going. Every breath is labored, like his lungs would out if he was removed from Ashton much longer. He's breathing through a sick body, because sick is what happens to Luke without Ashton. Every year is another tear in his heart.

 

It's been 18 years, six thousand and five hundred day, and Luke is dead. Luke is a ghost of anything that had mattered to him. Luke is gone, and in his place is a mindless ghost trapped in a seventeen year old body without the only thing that ever really mattered to him. Ashton is a piece of hurt that made every breath ragged, every ageless moment last longer.

 

He's sick and broken when he peered into Blues Record Shop, and then, it seems like his broken heart is struck.

 

There he is. There he fucking is.

 

There is the love of his life. He's giggling into a phone and Luke is going to die. He's right _there._

 

_AshtonAshtonAshton_

 

Ashton is through the glass and a few feet away. Ashton is right in front of Luke and it’s been years since he’s seen that face and maybe it’s a mirage but no, no, no. Luke’s imagined seeing Ashton’s face a million times, just to deal with the fight. He's pictured Ashton by his side, pictured Ashton everywhere: pictured Ashton living in the old ladies crappy apartment and Ashton with him when he shopped and ashton when he laughed at shows, but nothing was funny without the hazel eyed boy. And he couldn't make that up in his head. That boy was something else, made of the same stuff as angels and light and music and love.

 

And this is him. This is his boy.

 

"Ashton!" He walked in, his heart beat thrashing in his chest, and the boy looks up and Luke stops breathing.

 

Luke feels his breath stop because there are those _gorgeous_ eyes are trained on him and _fuck_ Luke’s missed it and it feels a little bit like he was a drug addict who’d gone cold turkey from his drug and he’s just got it back.

 

And it feels something like heaven and being burned. Luke starts aging again. He can feel it; feel his age matter and his life restart, feel his cells start _again._

 

All he knows for sure is that he loves him.

 

The honey haired boy looks stunned, in an earnest way. Hazel eyes wide and he is confused, confused because Ashton has always felt… different. He’s always, always, since he was born, felt like something was wrong, like there’s a weight on his chest, like he’s been hurting all his life. He’s been hurting, because he’s born craving _something._ He’s craving something he can’t describe and it hurts him. There’s something god awful about not ever feeling whole, constantly craving something so hard and you don’t even know what it was.

 

It feels different. It feels better, he guesses, like he’s for once, whole. Like something he’s been craving for 18 years has been met, because he’s making eye contact with a strikingly blue eyed boy, a boy that’s gorgeous. He’s something so perfect, something so divine and his thoughts are _racing,_ going so quick and his heart is beating fast, and this is is a fucking stranger.

 

A beautiful stranger. A stranger that looked like a work of art, stubble clinging onto his sharp jawline, _holy fuck irwin thats hot_ , subtle bags hanging under blue eyes, blue eyes that have teal bits that hang in the grooves of his iris, _everything_ and Ashton is in love with them. Not the stranger, he can’t be in love with him, but those eyes have subtle familiarity, warmth that reaches out and _calms_ Ashton.

 

And he knows his name, which makes no sense, but Ashton’s heart is pumping at this attractive guy who’s making his knees buckle and he’s walking in the store and _calm down ashton._

 

_Luke. He looks like a Luke._

 

“H-Hey, can I help you?” he curses himself for his voice cracking.He feels hypnotized by the taller boy. His jaw is dropped

 

“How did you know my name?”

 

Luke is stumped and speechless because he’s standing in front of Ashton, he knows it is and there’s that lovely accent and there’s those eyes and he’s wearing blocky glasses that make him look so _cute._

He’s so perfect and Luke wants to shove everything off the table and shove him _on_ it, wrap his arms around his thin waist and press long kisses to his neck and do everything he'd missed. It all seems like a lovely daydream.

How was Luke supposed to say how he knew his name?

 

_Luke was happy. I mean, happy enough. He had internship at the best bank in the area and he was going to be a flourishing accountant and he was going to be happy. He was going to live comfortably and within the confines of normality. And Luke tried to be happy with normal, with living within confines._

_And he was doing just fine on may 25th when he waked out of the bank and saw the most perfect person to ever walk this earth. A bit with curly hair that was pulled on his head , flowers in a circled halo of daisies around his hair and his cherub cheeks rosy and adorable. He's talking to an old lady who's buying a flower crown, just like the one he's wearing. She's smiling and Luke's heart is beating rapidly and he needs to walk over there. He needs to talk to that guy._

 

_And as soon as she leaves, Luke's walking up to the flower guy, and as he gets close all he can think is that his face is like the sun. He's smiling so big and_ **_dimples_ ** _and Luke is mind if in awe of how perfect one guy can be._

 

_"Hi! Can I sell you something, babe?"_

**_babebabebabe_ **

**_he called me babe_ **

_His voice is pretty and Luke likes it, like the accent and the way it sounds in all._

 

_"'S My mums birthday, could I get a bouquet of something?" He's lying, but it's okay because the conversation is going well and good god this guy is cute and its making Luke so nervous._

 

_"Blue hydrangeas! Babe, your mom will love them, trust me," And right then Luke knows he's fucked because that smile is so contagious and perfect and it's the about the purest he's ever seen, and its so captivating._

 

_He's wrapping up the flowers before Luke can ask how much they cost, and suddenly Luke's talking._

 

_"Why do you think she'll like those?" He sounds curious, and he's asking half for an answer and half because he wants to hear that cheery voice again._

 

_Then, he cocked his head like a confused puppy and Luke wants to do something between making out with the boy and petting his hair._

 

_He's looking at him, and then , then he blushes. Which is, like, the most_ **_adorable_ ** _thing Luke has ever seen. The other boy is blushing and looks down before mumbling._

 

_"Well you've got some lovely blue eyes, that's all," and now it's Luke blushing and they look a bit embarrassing, and Luke tries to think of something to say back, twiddling his pale thumbs._

 

_"Well I don't think your mum would have any luck finding flowers as lovely as your eyes."_

 

_And Ashton, well, he smiles so_ **_big_ ** _, so bright that Luke swears it could light this city. Tenfold._

 

_"Well thank you," he paused, looked at Luke's name tag, "Huke Lemmings,” he’s smirking and Luke wants to kiss that stupid smirk off of his pink lips._

 

_“Luke, thank you very much.” he said, smiling at the table, the setting sun washing over Ashton’s face, orange light dancing across his cheeks. He looks picturesque._

 

_“How much is i-” and Luke is stopped when Ashton’s walked out from behind the stand and has shoved the bouquet into Luke’s hands, and he’s a little bit close, sun framing his face and Luke’s gone because Ashton’s are touching his, he’s holding his hands and a bouquet._

 

_“Free.”_

 

_And Ashton’s smiling with hazel eyes and white platinum teeth and cute dimples, and he’s in-like._

 

_And with hydrangeas in his hands he presses his lips to Ashton’s and_ **_god,_ ** _he tastes like ginger snaps and warm hot chocolate. Luke kisses him and it’s possibly the craziest thing that Luke The Accountant had ever take, but suddenly he’s kissing a stranger outside the bank where he works and they’ve dropped the flowers and Luke is leaning down and Ashton’s got his hands in Luke’s hair and Luke’s got his hands in Ashton’s hair._

 

_“Do you want to have dinner tomorrow night?”_

 

“Name tag,” he breathed, Ashton blushing and his heart is exploded in his chest.

 

“Right, can I get you anything babe?”

 

His breath hitched at the familiar tone and the familiar words. The boy he knows all-too-well standing in front of him and he knows that Ashton probably doesn't remember and that this won't end in kisses between flowers, and he knows that. But Ashton’s so _pretty_ with curly hair and he _wants_ to say something. He needs him to touch him, maybe just the touch of a hand, but just to assure Luke that he was real.

 

“My mum’s birthday is coming up she like’s old records and-”

 

“Beatles! Oh, we just got a few new records, she’ll love ‘em man, come here,” Ashton’s smiling and Luke’s knees are almost buckling as Ashton twines their fingers, the subtle loving he’s been craving, causing a sigh of relief and something more to Luke, and Ashton’s smiling too, and tugging Luke along to the back of the store.

 

The back of the record shop looks like home, old music hung on walls and there’s light in Ashton’s eyes as his fingers trace a Green Day record. Shaking himself, Ashton smiles up from it and then he grabs a small blue record.

 

“It’s great record man, you’ll like it. A lot.” Ashton’s smiling at Luke and Luke’s smiling back, and it’s been so _long._

 

Ashton doesn’t want the other boy to leave, doesn’t want to love this weird feeling of knowing that he belongs. There’s something adoring in the lue eyes of the stranger, and Ashton likes it, likes it so much. The boy is pretty, handsome, broad shoulders, chest wrapped in a blink-one-eighty-two shirt and his blond hair in a beanie, a lip ring in, and he’s gorgeous. Ashton’s captivated by him. He wants to ask him to stay, wants to stay and keep the contentedness he’s never had, and always crazed. He wants to keep the feeling that something had clicked in place. He just _likes_ this guy, and he doesn’t even know his name.

 

“I’d like to buy some random stuff too, for my friends, you know.”

 

And Ashton can’t even lie, can’t even deny the fact that he’s glad, so glad that this guy is staying.

 

“Cool, what’re they into?” Frankly, he justs wants to hear him talk, likes the sound of the way his voice handles words, likes the way he looks at him.

 

He rolls his sea-blue eyes back up as if he’s thinking, and then _fuck-_ he grins wide, so wide at him that Ashton might fall over.

 

“Michael! Ash, oh my god, Blink, he loves Blink.”

 

_ashashashash_

 

“Well if you’re gonna call me that, you ought to tell me your name.” he smiled at Luke while he was _actually_ choking on his own heart because this fucking _hot_ guy just nicknamed him.

 

“Oh, yeah, sorry babe, it’s Luke.” he smiles at Ashton when Ashton squirms with a blush when he hears the pet name and Ashton likes it. The name feels intimate on his tongue, warmth and full of familiarity, full of memories and he wants to latch onto why this stranger doesn’t seem like a stranger at all. Luke seems like home, which is ridiculous.

 

“Tell me about yourself, Lukey,” he asked, smirking a little at how to other boy’s cheeks heat up, as Ashton gathers together records. But they don’t end up buying records, not for a long time. Because neither boy wants to leave the shop, wants to leave the other’s presence. So Ashton talks about his little sister and his brother and Luke talks about the old lady he takes care of, how he’s actually in foster care their favorite music, and when they realize that the sun has set, they still don’t want to part. Ashton is entranced with every nook and cranny of Luke, how he laughs with one scoff and bites his tongue when he smiles, how he looks at Ashton like he’s his world, which should scare him, but what’s _scarier_ is the world seems to only matter when Luke’s there. Luke is suddenly the sun and the moon and the stars.

 

“Well, I’m sure Michael will like these,” Luke says, grinning back at the other boy.

 

“Is this Michael a friend?”

 

And now Luke’s laughing, hard, and it seems random and Ashton’s head cocked just slightly, adoringly and it’s the cutest thing, Luke’s laugh is perfect.

 

“I’m not dating him. He’s just this kid who’s transferred to the city school. We talk at the cafe sometimes.”

 

“That wasn’t what I was asking!” Ashton replied, cheeks flaming.

 

“Well, it seemed like it.” Luke's still grinning like a wild man and Ashton feels like he's too fond.

 

“Well,” Ashton choked on his own spit for a second, and smiled nervously at a boy, a boy with blue eyes that made love seem real, “Do you have dinner plans tonight?”

 

And maybe Luke will like doing it all over again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> if thats confusing??? here's an explanation  
> luke met ashton, grew old with him, married him, ashton died then luke's immortal, gets a tattoo of ashton's name in a foreign language on his wrist, stops aging and goes to the address on his wrist. he meets ashton there, a reincarnation of him with the same name and he starts all over  
> WHOOOO  
> TALK TO ME ONN TUMBLR YOU CUTIES!!!~~~ LOVERLYLITTLEIMAGINES.CO.VU


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